Lecture 5: Social Change in India

Slide 1
SOCIAL CHANGE IN INDIA

Change is a reality. Human society

too experience changes in different
domains

from

time

to

time.

However, all types of changes are

not convered by the term of social
change which has a definite meaning
in sociology. Social change refers to
change in social structure.

Thus

change in per capita income, if not

accompanied by changes in social
relationships, is not a part of social
change.

BOX 2.1
Ironically, despite our profession of socialistic pattern
of society, our policies in social and economic fields
have been most detrimental to the prosperity of the
weaker sections of society, such as the dalits, the
women, the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and the
minorities. It is reflected also in the failure of our
education policy. The mass illiteracy in the forty per
cent of the population still persists. It is higher still in
the case of women. There is a vicious circular
relationship between poverty, susceptibility to fall a
victim to exploitation, proneness to health morbidity,
high fertility rate and illiteracy. Education is a single
most effective factor which breaks this process of
vicious cumulative causation. We find that wherever
educational achievements, whether within a region or
a social group are higher, the indicators of economic
growth as also of the quality of life are higher. Our
failure in the field of removal of illiteracy, and
universalization of education is indeed at the root of
the most facets of our crisis of failures.

Sociologists have developed several concepts to study social change in India: development,
modernization, Westenization, universalization, social development, great and little traditions are
some of them. For a long time sociologists and anthropologists in India used the concepts of
parochialization and universalization, and great and little tradtions which were developed by
McKim Marriot and Robert Redfield in studies of Indian and Mexican villages. Among such
concepts Sanskritization and Westernization hold special significance.

Slide 2
SANSKRITIZATION

The concept of Sanskritization is given by M. N. Srinivas. According to him, Sanskritization had

been occurring throughout the Indian history. It may be viewed as the model of social mobility in
India. To understand this concept it is important to distinguish between two related concepts of
Varna and caste. Varna is an all-India framework and in this framework human society is divided
into four hierarchical groups (Varnas). They are Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shudra.
Untouchables are outside the Varna system. On the other hand caste refers to hereditary,
endogamous groups which form a hierarchy, each having a traditional association with one or
two occupations. Castes groups maintained relations in terms of purity and pollution. There were
many castes which were only regional in character. Regarding hierarchy, in each region there are
certain castes which are considered to be at the top and certain other castes are considered to be
at the bottom. An interesting aspect of the caste system has been that the claims to position are
contested and there is no general agreement regarding hierarchy, at least at the middle level.

Slide 3
Further, through Sanskritization, i.e., by changing customs, rituals, ideology and way of life
towards upper castes people belonging to a particular caste claim a superior status on the caste
hierarchy. This may or may not be granted by others and sometimes the matter reached the king
who gave the final verdict. At times castes would fight violently till a status claimed by them is
granted to them. Srinivas maintained that Sanskritization, however, led only to positional change
but not structural change. This means that the perceived positions of different castes may change
but it would not affect the Hindu belief in caste hierarchy. To be Hindu is to belong to a caste
with a relative place in the hierarchical division.
Srinivas agrees that Sanskritization was only one source of mobility in Hindu society.
Initially, he observed that Sanskritization means emulating the life styles of Brahmins. In his
later works, however, he maintained that Indian culture being highly varied and the beliefs about
status of a Varna being dependent on local culture, there were several models of Sanskritization:
Brahmin model, Kshatriya model, Vaisya model; and Shudra model. Thus Brahmin model was
only one of them. The concept of dominant caste supplemented the concept of Sanskritization in
some way. At some places if the tribal groups were dominant, the other groups followed the
tribal customs and thus one can also speak of a tribal model of Sanskritization.
The following example shows the process.
Imagine that an outsider or an untouchable group
decides to enter the caste society. By accumulating
power they can enter the caste hierarchy at the level
of Kshatriyas. Then the people belonging to caste of
genealogists and bards create genealogical links and
myths about them. Subsequently the outside or
untouchable groups acquire the high Kshatriya
status. Secular power influences ritual ranking.
For a long time Sanskritization may have worked.

BOX 2.2:
SANSKRITIZATION
Sanskritization is a process by
which a low Hindu caste, or
tribal or other group, changes
its customs, ritual, ideology,
and way of life in the direction
of a high, and frequently, a
twice born caste. It is
followed by a claim to a higher
position in the caste hierarchy
than traditionally concealed to
the claimant caste by the local
community. Such claims are
made over a period of time,
sometime a generation or two
before they are conceded
(Srinivas, 1966).

Slide 4
The major factors in Sanskritization were:

Fluidity of political system with bardic caste having the special privilege of legitimization of
the origin of different castes and Varnas

Position of the dominant caste

Pilgrimage

Migration of values and beliefs from great tradition to little tradition

Secular factors in determining the position of caste (in addition to pollution and purity)

Migration to new areas

Bhakti movement that established the idea of equality before God and thus the idea of
equality among different groups and castes

After independence of the country, the issue of social mobility became more complex and
cases of Sanskritization, de-Sanskritization as well as re-Sanskritization (Singh, 1974) were
observed. Due to the policy of positive discrimination adopted by Indian government now an
increasing number of groups laid claim to backward status rather than high status. Some of them
claim a backward status in state matters and a forward status in society.

Slide 5
WESTERNIZATION

Different people defined the term westernization in different ways. Srinivas used this term for all
those changes that affected all Indians during British rule (after establishment of Pax Britannica)
and which accelerated later. Thus it refers to the change brought about in Indian society and
culture as a result of over 150 years of British rule, the term subsuming changes occurring at
different levelstechnology, institutions, knowledge, and values. Westernization changed the
society and culture of India significantly. It produced:

Humanitarianism

Secularism

Equalitarianism

Rationality

Attack on untouchability

Rationality and humanitarianism may be called the hallmark of Westernization. Srinivas

recognizes the importance of local culture in determining the nature of Weternization. For many
people it produced cultural schizophrenia (in a non-pathological sense) which means that
people who became Westernized in some domains of life (mostly in office) maintained tradition
in other domains (for example at home). It must be noted that there were different Western
influences on different people of India because different people in India came in contact of
different types of British people: administrators, army men, traders, and Christian missionaries.
Srinivas also showed that the movement from tradition to Westernization was not linear:
Westernization also produced revivalism, nationalism, communalism, casteism (vertical and
horizontal solidarity), heightened linguistic consciousness, regionalism and passionate
xenophobia (among Muslims). In some contexts Westernization led to rejection of the tradition
while in others it led to mixing or combination of traditions and Western influences.

Slide 6
GLOBALIZATION AND GLOCALIZATION
In 20th century India both society and population have changed. India is experiencing several
processes of change, such as demographic transition, industrialization and urbanization, skill
development, social mobility, legal changes and greater assertion of autonomy. Among them
effects of globalization and glocalization are very significant and far reaching. Globalization is
economic and glocalization is cultural. The former concept refers to free flow of labor and
capital across international borders, and the latter refers to spread of the culture of globalization
through local cultures. Glocalization has given rise to new meanings of tradition and modern.
Although Lee (1994,a) defined glocalization as the simulation of modernity for the spread of
commodity forms in local cultures, it cannot be isolated from the replacement of thought
categories in the process of commodity glocalization.
These processes of change have both functions and dysfunctions. Among the positive
developments are: opening of demographic window (due to declining birth rate, lower life
expectancy in old age, and progression of baby boom children); improvement in literacy rate;
rapid expansion of education at all levels; greater flow of labor, capital and technology across
international borders with emigrants sending a significant part of remittances; increased
productivity of service and industrial sectors; infrastructure development; promotion of tourism;
new opportunities abroad due to aging of industrialized economies; some empowerment of
women; and new ideas of equality and justice. Among the dysfunctions are: environmental
degradation; increasing marginalization among the agricultural laborers and artisans; rising
disparities; religious and community bigotry promoted by leaders, media and market; trafficking
of women and children; a large number of cases of female feticide; violence against women; and
at the root of many other dysfunctions, an idea that all the emergent problems of the country are
due to history.

Slide 7
Sociologists have focused on social change and demographers on demographic changes.
There is a need to understand the link between the social and demographic changes.

BOX 2.3: GLOBALIZATION AND GLOCALIZATION

From Lee (1994b):
(1) Under contemporary conditions of globalization that are characterized by a
dissemination of Western knowledge and technology, the notion of culture
seems to be losing its underlying exclusiveness that once defined disparate
identities and symbolic variances of peoplehood. The commodification of
culture and the global spread of the culture industry have apparently
contributed to this leveling process.
(2) The crisis of modernity and representation in the West is generally a cultural
crisis that reveals a recognition of and despondency over the dark side of the
Enlightenment. The irony is that the jaded promises of the Enlightenment have
been globalized and have found niches in the developing world under the sign
of a simulated modernity.
(3) The simulation of modernity is however a complicated process that hinges on
glocalization where the global is tailored to the local and vice versa. The
outcome is not a simple local adaptation of the modernity paradigm, but
possibly a revivification of traditional lifeworlds to alter modernity beyond its
original image. Although the simulation of Western modernity, the power of
traditionalisms in the developing world suggests that there can be no one
modernity and thereby exposes the falsity of a Third World modernization.